


The Terrible Things We Do For Love

by squilf



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Luther (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 19:49:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squilf/pseuds/squilf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you have not done something terrible for love, then you have not loved, not really. (Six stories of lost love, unrequited love, thwarted love, and everything outside and in between.)</p>
<p>Or, Luther set in the world of His Dark Materials, where every person has a daemon, the manifestation of their inner self in an animal body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Terrible Things We Do For Love

Mark first sees Zoe at work. He’s new and he’s ten minutes late and he’s not looking where he’s going and he drops his paperwork everywhere.

“Well done,” says Paula, fluttering to the floor to preen her feathers.

Mark scrabbles with his papers, but something catches his eye from across the hall and he looks up and _there she is_. Zoe Luther. The first thing he sees is her beauty. The second thing he sees is her wedding ring.

“There’s always bloody something, isn’t there?” says Paula, who’s seen look on his face and knows what it means, because they’ve been here before, they’ve been here plenty of times, and she knows how this ends.

“Shut up,” says Mark, “She’s beautiful.”

“They always are.”

Mark shoves his paperwork into his bag, scrambles to his feet, and hurries after her. She’s just got into the lift and Mark rushes to get in too, shoves the doors back open as they start to close.

“Sorry,” he says, breathless, “I’m new.”

Zoe raises her eyebrows, looks him up and down.

“And I’m Zoe,” she says, shakes his hand.

Mark holds her hand a little longer than is necessary. Her daemon chirrups at Paula, curious.

“Mark, actually, I mean – my name is Mark.”

“Well, I thought ‘new’ was an unusual name.”

Mark laughs, and it’s awkward, but Zoe’s smiling, like she doesn’t quite know what to make of him.

“Listen, I don’t mean to – it’s just, you’re – well, you’re very attractive, so I –”

The lift stops, the doors open.

“I’m really very busy,” says Zoe, stepping out of the lift.

Then she stops, turns around.

“But you’re not so bad yourself,” she says, and smiles.

Mark goes to follow her, but the lift doors swing shut. He sighs. Still, he can’t hold back a smile.

“She likes me.”

Paula stretches her wings disinterestedly.

“ _Joy_.”

 

 

Alice gets into Madsen’s room easy enough. Wear a white coat and everyone thinks you’re a doctor. Handy that. Madsen’s alive, though it’s only the tubes and wires and machines plugged into him that are keeping him that way. Alice smiles. Presses her hand against the glass. Lets the anticipation settle in her stomach. Ruth isn’t so calm. She’s agitated, shuffling her feet, squawking, pulling at Alice’s hair.

“Patience, darling,” says Alice, and kisses the monkey’s nose.

Her voice wavers, just a little, just enough that her daemon can see she’s just as desperate for this as she is. Ever since she killed her parents, she’s wanted to do it again. She’s waited long enough. And John Luther has given her such a lovely excuse. Oh, John. He’ll probably think – probably _hope_ – she’s doing this for love of him. He’ll only be half right.

Alice pushes the door open, steps in. The fragility of Madsen’s life fills the room, brittle, breakable. It’s a house of straw, barely held together, and all Alice needs do is blow. Madsen’s just lying there, helpless, like a babe, his spider-daemon sleeping in his hair. Ruth scuttles down Alice’s arm and gently, gently, picks the little thing up by one thin leg. She wakes up, panics, writhing and wriggling, and Ruth bares her teeth. Alice shoots her a warning look, _not yet_ , and traces Madsen’s lips with her fingers.

“Don’t say his name,” she whispers, because as much as this isn’t about John, it is, and covers his mouth and nose with her hand.

Madsen can’t scream, just kicks and kicks, like his daemon does while Ruth plucks off her legs, one by one.

“You’re a rather cruel thing, aren’t you?” Alice says, later, when they’re leaving the hospital, and Ruth squeaks and bites her ear.

 

 

When Ian is a child, he finds a bird, a fledgling, clumsy and lost, and pulls out its feathers. They are such a lovely colour, so blue.

When Ian is older, he meets Zoe, and he can’t help but think her daemon’s feathers are the same colour. Perhaps that’s why he wants her so much, wants to trap her in his hands like that little bird.

Zoe’s daemon is a nuthatch. He sings and flits around, quick and pretty, like Zoe is. Ian’s daemon is a cat. She watches Indy and mewls at him and tries to catch him. But she never does, not even on the night Ian kills Zoe.

The night Ian kills Zoe, she’s screaming for John, screaming and crying, and Indy is screeching, short, sharp shrieks, and it’s too much, too loud, and Ian just wants it to stop. So he pulls the trigger, because a bullet is a full stop. Indy drops to the floor and Steph touches him with her paw, but it’s gentle, like she doesn’t really want to play with him, not now, not like this. And then he disappears, gold sparks flaring up and dying, and Zoe is bloody and silent on the floor.

“ _No_!” he screams, harsh and broken, drops the gun, struggles to breathe.

He could touch her now. He doesn’t. He can’t. His hands are shaking too much. Years of watching her, wanting her – but he never touched her, and he never will, and no-one ever will.

“This is your doing,” he tells John, his fingers tight around the phone, “You did this.”

Steph nuzzles at Zoe’s hand, like she’s trying to wake her up, and Ian knows, John didn’t do this. He did.

 

 

After – after _everything_ , they’re at the station, and Justin’s slumped against the wall, exhausted but restless, his eyes bloodshot, and Warren’s clinging to him, whimpering and shuddering, and Justin’s saying, “It’s okay girl, it’s okay, it’s okay,” over and over, but she won’t stop, she cries and cries.

“Please, please, ssh, it’s okay,” says Justin, because he can’t do this, his breathing is ragged and his head hurts and he’s going to cry too, and he bites his hand so he can’t, because everyone is here, _John_ is here.

He shuts his eyes, breathes, breathes, and Warren stills.

“Good girl,” he says, and drops his hands to the floor, breathes out.

Then he hears a low, loud hum, a _purr_ , and he opens his eyes, and there’s Idris, huge, fierce Idris, leant over Warren and licking her like a cub.

“Um,” says Justin, “Thank you.”

Idris blinks up at him with those amber-sunset-honey-yellow eyes, picks the dog up by the scruff of her neck, sets her down between her paws. Warren whines, presses herself into Idris’ white fur, licks the side of her face, says, “Love you,” in between licks. Justin looks up, meets John’s eyes.

“What did Pell do to you, Justin?” John asks.

Justin says nothing, just pushes himself to his feet and stumbles to the other side of the office, with Warren still curled up under Idris, the lioness’ head resting on her back. John looks from the man to his daemon, clocks the distance between them, sighs.

“Mate,” he says, and he doesn’t say anything more.

Justin bites his lip, shuffles closer. He wishes John would hold him, knows he isn’t going to. He looks at Warren, almost hidden under the lioness. It must be nice to be loved by a lion, he thinks. All that strength, all that heart, all for you. He should ask Warren what it’s like. He’s never going to find out for himself.

 

 

Jenny Jones gets away with murder because DCI John Luther is really fucking awful at his job. (Or actually disturbingly good at it.) One day he comes home and Jenny is covered in blood, staring into space, her frog-daemon sitting unblinkingly in her cupped hands. And he can’t let her go down for this, not for killing that piece of shit. She’s young and she’s lost and she’s _his_ – at least, she is now, one of his twisted little collection of outcasts and strays, her and Justin and Alice and Mark, all the people he’s messed up and can’t let go of.

Idris helps him drag the body to the roof.

“I hate it when you make me do these things,” she says, her tail twitching.

“We’re doing it for Jenny.”

“And all the times before? Were they for someone else then? Or just for you? So you can get some satisfaction from your own kind of sick justice?”

John stops, looks at her.

“You spend too much time with Warren.”

Idris growls. (Warren is her soft spot. John doesn’t know why, but he can guess.)

“No, John,” she says, “I spend too much time cleaning up your mess.”

 

It was worth it, John says, keeps saying, because of the way Jenny smiles when they’re at the train station a month later.

“Thank you,” she says, “For, ya know, everything.”

John nods, and then she’s in his arms, her face buried in his chest.

“I know I had a dad, but – if you was my dad, I’d – I’d be happy.”

Idris gives Aime a stately nod, and he ribbits happily. John kisses Jenny on the forehead, says, “Let me know how you get on, alright?”

He waves her off, smiles, thinks he’d do no less for her than any father.

 

 

DS Erin Gray hates Justin Ripley. She hates the way he follows Luther around like his fucking dog. She hates his “leave it to me”s and his “he knows what he’s doing”s. She hates his excuses and his explanations. Lies lies lies.

But mostly, she hates that he loves someone so much, and that someone isn’t her. That’s what it is to be a loved by a dog; to be loved completely and constantly. At least, that’s what she imagines it’s like. (She probably imagines it too much.)

Erin’s never had any luck in love. There’s always a guy, and he never cares. He lies, or he cheats, or he drinks, or he hits her. She just wants someone different, someone _kind_. Which is probably why, when she meets Justin, the bruises on her arm from Aidan (from the night before, the night before that) hidden under her shirt, she gets this stupid _crush_. Just her luck that he’s gay and in love with his boss.

And then Aidan doesn’t stop, and then she nearly gets fired, and then she gets really fucking bitter.

(“I’m not letting them do this to me,” she says, in tears on her bathroom floor, “Not anymore.”

And Nikki crawls into her lap, digs his claws into her thigh, says, “I’ll tear the bitch apart.”

Badgers are so much more vicious than anyone gives them credit for.)

She kisses Justin, because it’s in front of his precious John, because it’s revenge. In the back seat, Warren whimpers, because Nikki’s got her pinned under his claws, his teeth, holding her down. And this is how it’s going to be from now on. With Erin in control.

**Author's Note:**

> I had fun writing this and trying to think up what everyone’s daemons would be. [This list](http://daemonmuck.wikidot.com/game:daemon-symbolism/) was a very helpful resource. Some characters were easier to pin than others. What do you think? I’m curious. (If you were wondering, I imagined Mark’s daemon as a nightingale, and Justin’s as a German Shepherd.)
> 
> Thanks to [Linkin Park](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv4zGQ5feaY/) for inspiration, and to my flatmate for watching the last episode of Luther with me, mostly from behind the sofa.


End file.
